Chicken broth is versatile. It can be used as a stand-alone dish, added when stewing vegetables, or used to make soups.
However, preparing a tasty, aromatic, rich and clear broth is not easy.
There are many subtleties that many people don't even suspect.
Choose your chicken wisely
Broth will never taste really good from a broiler. These chickens are raised to produce soft, tender meat.
These chicken breeds gain meat in a few months, being in sedentary conditions. They do not develop full muscle tissue, and the bones are too soft.
And for broth, the broth is important, which can give real meat, fat and bones. Therefore, for broth, you should buy an old laying hen. Their carcasses look thin, and the product itself belongs to the second grade. Nevertheless, this is the best option for broth.
How long to cook
The broth's special feature is the long cooking, during which the meat and bones give their juices to the water, making it nutritious, tasty and giving it a golden color. Broiler meat will fall apart after 40 minutes, but an adult laying hen will take more than an hour to cook.
How to tell time? If the meat easily separates from the bone, it is ready. A whole carcass takes longer to cook than one cut into pieces.
How to cook
1. For 1 kg of meat take 2-2.5 liters of water.
2. The meat is immersed in cold water and brought to a boil.
3. You need to add salt at the beginning of cooking, as salt helps the juices to come out of the meat. This will make the broth richer.
4. Remove the foam. Over time, it will begin to settle, making the liquid cloudy. There is nothing wrong with foam, it is just protein. But if you do not remove it, you can forget about a beautiful transparent liquid. And this is a characteristic feature of broth.
5. Onion peels give the dish a golden color and subtle aroma. That's why chefs always put an unpeeled onion with the meat.
6. Greens give the broth a special flavor and aroma. But to prevent the leaves of parsley, dill, and celery from falling apart during cooking and spoiling the broth, they are placed in a cocoon of gauze or wrapped in leek leaves, tied with a thread. Then the greens just need to be removed.
7. For color, taste and aroma, add a couple of pieces of carrots, celery root, and parsnips to the pan.
These subtleties will help you prepare the perfect chicken broth. And to thicken it, you can add a little gelatin, which must first be soaked and melted in a water bath.
